Academy 1/48 SBD-5 Dauntless

Presenting Academy Latest representation of the SBD-5 Dauntless in 1/48 scale box number 12329! This kit is a fantastic rebox from Accurate Miniatures, even when the first appearance was over ten years, no one offer a better kit in this scale of the Dauntless.

Brief History of the Dauntless extracted from the Pearl Harbor Museum website :

The Dauntless played a starring role in the war in the Pacific. The SBD (“Scout Bomber Douglas”) was the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps scout plane and dive-bomber from 1940 to 1944. They first saw action at Pearl Harbor flying off the USS Enterprise, but are best remembered as the bomber that delivered the fatal blows to Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. In total, the Dauntless sank more enemy shipping than any other Allied bomber.

From Pearl Harbor through April 1944, SBDs flew 1,189,473 operational hours, with 25 percent flown off aircraft carriers. SBDs sank six Japanese carriers, 14 enemy cruisers, six destroyers, 15 transports or cargo ships and scores of lesser craft.

The SBD had long range, good handling characteristics, maneuverability, potent bomb load capacity, great diving characteristics, defensive armament and ruggedness. Their two forward-firing machine guns and one or two rear flexible-mount machine guns were effective against the lightly-built Japanese fighters.

The SBD’s most important contribution to the American war effort came during the Battle of Midway in early June 1942. Four squadrons of Navy SBD dive-bombers attacked and sank or fatally damaged all four Japanese fleet carriers present—three of them in the span of just six minutes (Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and, later in the day, Hiryū). They also caught the Midway bombardment group of four heavy cruisers, heavily damaging two of them, the Mikuma so badly that she had to be scuttled.